


you're like a mirror, reflecting me

by batterytriplicate



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Catholic Imagery, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Nonbinary Chara and Frisk, Undertale Genocide Route, Undertale Neutral Route, Undertale Pacifist Route, first fic for undertale!, selectively nonverbal Frisk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-09 04:36:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12269025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batterytriplicate/pseuds/batterytriplicate
Summary: Whenever you enter a fight, Chalavanth turns into something small and scampers to hide—in your pant leg, up your sleeve, hidden in the riot of tangles you call hair, out of the way.The time they turn into a snake, Chara snarlsNOso intensely that Chalavanth immediately snaps into a beetle, and you shriek wordlessly with it—evenyounever force Chalavanth to shift, it's notdone,the daemon decides what form to take—Chalavanth makes a chittering noise, clicking pincers against your arm,focus!and you barely manage to roll out of the path of bullets.





	you're like a mirror, reflecting me

**Author's Note:**

> _let me in the wall you've built around_  
>  _and we can light a match and burn them down_  
>  _and let me hold your hand_  
>  _and dance 'round and 'round the flames_  
>  _in front of us_  
>  _dust to dust_

You almost don't want to step further into the room.

Even though you can see light filtering in, glimmering on the tiles—is it the sun, filtering in through the barrier, the barrier somehow worn so thin, you're so close—the gaping dark doorway urging you on, you don't want to keep going. 

The story you've just heard and the subsequent emptiness is rattling around in your head, jangling wrongly, as you know what lies at the end of this corridor. You  _know._

You take a deep breath, and begin to walk.

Your steps echo heavily in the golden hall. It feels almost sacrilegious, for someone as filthy and unkempt as you to be walking in a place of such beauty, such finery. such, grandeur. You feel very small. 

There's a soft squeak from your pocket, and you immediately reach in to withdraw the fieldmouse within, grateful for the warmth spreading through your fingertips at the touch, the reassurance of your connection.

"Come on," Chalavanth says, whiskers twitching. "We're going to finish this."

You don't get to respond.

"So you've finally made it."

❤️

You should be walking out of the Underground. You have a phone call to receive. 

You  _should,_ but you are not even in the slightest ready to move yet.

Chalavanth's a wolf, a massive one, and you have your face pressed against their flank, fingers twisted into their fur, their muzzle resting heavy on your shoulder. The feedback loop of comforting each other is doing a good job of calming you down, so far.

When you'd woken up in Flowey's World, it was alone. Utterly and completely alone, in a way you never had been, for all your life. Chalavanth has always,  _always_ been at your side, in your pockets, not even moving to test the stretch of your connection—even the thought of being without them—

You shudder, and press closer, like you're not already leaning half your weight against them. You try not to think about it.

But you can't  _stop_ thinking about it, about the deep empty chasm that took up the space where your connection was, the way Flowey dangled your connection with Chalavanth over your head only to yank it away, shrieking with laughter when you screamed and cried in pain and frustration, the way Flowey had sprinkled little pieces of golden Dust over your head when you couldn't move, freezing you with the thought of  _separation,_ of your daemon  _dying_ and you being forced to live on, Chalavanth snatched from you as Flowey made a play for your soul, and you thought he'd  _won it,_ because if Chalavanth isn't with you—

"Shh," Chalavanth murmurs, and you realize distantly that you've started crying into their fur. "I'm right here. You won't lose me."

You shudder again, and take in a deep breath.

Leaving can wait.

❤️

_Love, hope, compassion..._  
_This is what people say monster SOULs are made of._  
_But the absolute nature of “SOUL” is unknown._  
_After all, humans have proven their SOULs don’t need these things to exist._

You glance down at Chalavanth almost instinctively, where they've curled up at your feet in the form of an adorably huge-pawed, gawky-looking snow leopard to help keep out the chill of Snowdin. They're laying on your feet, and you're happily attempting to leech in any form of heat that they can offer. You lean as far as you can without dislodging them, and pick up the next book. 

_While monsters are mostly made of magic, human beings are mostly made of water._  
_However, there is a part of a human that is also made of magic: their daemon._

Chalavanth's ears perk up, and quick as anything, they've turned into a sleek-furred ferret and are wrapping around your neck to get a closer look.

"I'm made of magic?" Chalavanth said curiously. "I thought I was made of Dust."

You shush them, conscious of the other monsters around you, and look back at the book.

_Humans, with their physical forms and separate housing of their magic, are far stronger than us._  
_But they will never know the joy of expressing themselves through magic._  
_They’ll never get a bullet-pattern birthday card..._

"Next one, next one, next one," Chalavanth chants in your ear, quiet enough now that only you can hear them. You open the next book.

_Monster funerals, technically speaking, are cool as heck._  
_When monsters get old and kick the bucket, they turn into dust._  
_At funerals, we take that dust and spread it on that person’s favorite thing._  
_Then their essence will live on in that thing..._  
_Uhhh, am I at the page minimum yet?_  
_I’m kinda sick of writing this._

You and Chalavanth have both frozen, Chalavanth as close to you as they can get, the mention of Dust sending a chill through the both of you that have nothing to do with the snow outside. You raise a hand, needing the connection of your daemon to provide some sort of stability.

"So," Chalavanth says, voice practically a whisper. "Are monsters... daemons?"

There's a ghostly laugh in your ears, and you're about to ask for an explanation when you realize you've run out of books. You can feel them urging you on, a pressure in the back of your head that will only grow. You lower Chalavanth back to the ground, and they shake themself, back into a snow leopard.

There's a skeleton you need to get past.

❤️

When you step before the mighty king, who's looking rather befuddled by the barrier's sudden breaking (and also, maybe, by his absent wife's sudden return, and also maybe this sudden flood of people into his palace, and also maybe—okay, you know what, there's a lot going on, you can't blame him for being confused) he looks down at you, a little apprehensive, a little wary.

"We don't blame you," Chalavanth says, a weasel perched on their hind legs on your head so one of you can get closer to eye contact. Neither you or Chalavanth are ready to separate yourselves so soon after the fight, when they'd been separated. Asgore blinks down at the pair of you.

"I've fought everyone in this room," you add on, "so, um. No harm done?" 

He blinks again, and says, "Everyone?" His eyes dart towards Toriel.

You and Chalavanth both smile a little, and you scuff the toe of your beat-up sneaker on the ground. "Yeah," you say. " _Everyone."_

"Hm," he says, and then focuses his gaze on you. "I so wish I could offer you a cup of tea."

You smile. "Feel free to give me one when you get a chance."

He offers you a cautious smile. You shake his paw.

❤️

The flower pops up eager from the earth in front of you, and it's the first time (you think) that you actually know the truth of him.

He calls you Chara.

He calls Chalavanth  _Erimentha._

Your nose scrunches up at the wrongness of it—but the ever-growing presence in your head seems to languish in it.

❤️

"So," Sans says, as you're awash in the realization that _Sans is only helping you because Toriel made him promise_ , "that's your soul, huh?"

You freeze, eyes darting down to where Chalavanth has sat up slowly at the mention of souls, and then back to Sans. 

"Daemon," you correct, hoarse. It wasn't like he hadn't seen Chalavanth before.

"Sure," he says, "but basically it's your soul."

You can't really argue that. You glance down at Chalavanth to see if they want to chime in, then you fidget a little with the fancy tablecloth.

"You know," Sans says, knocking back some ketchup (you try your best not to wrinkle your nose up in disgust) "some people think that humans are only so powerful because they've got all their magic in their daemon, right? Or most of it, anyways."

You brush your foot against Chalavanth in a way that looks casual to anyone but you.

"You have to wonder, you know," he says. "if something were to, I dunno. Happen to your daemon. You've gotta wonder about how likely it is that you'd keep being fine."

Your body goes cold. You and Chalavanth forgo any attempt at seeming casual, and Chalvanth shifts, an otter twining into your arms, and you hold them close to your chest. You think of Severance, you think of people who somehow keep living even when their daemon dies, you think about all the horrible, nightmarish things that could happen to a daemon and  _by extension you—_

"Lighten up, kiddo," Sans says, "Do I gotta retell you the story?"

❤️

It's white, like snow, like powdered sugar sticking to your fingers. Bizarrely, your first thought is  _that's nothing like how it is in movies._

You feel immediately awful for thinking it. Of course it didn't—everything on TV looked glitzier and smoothed over. Of course something bursting into Dust wouldn't be the beautiful supernova of gold that it was on TV. 

The Froggit before you had just— _unraveled,_ is the best way you can think of it, like someone tugging a loose thread on a sweater only to watch it come apart before their eyes. Not a starburst, or anything. Just—there. And then there was the white Dust on the ground. And on your stick. And some on your shoes.

_Monster dust looks different than daemon Dust,_ the voice seems to say.  _Daemons really do kinda explode when their people die. It's awesome._

The last thing was said like it was something to be relished, some wonderful treat they had yet to devour—chocolate cake on a platter, pie cooling on the windowsill. You shudder.

_You barely even saw it properly,_ the voice continues, a sneer.  _We'll have to find a bigger monster. It looks way more like a daemon when it's a bigger monster._

Unbidden, your feet turn you away from the puddle of pretty white Dust, and further into the ruins.

Chalavanth whines high in their doggy-throat, but hastens after you.

❤️

Papyrus is on floor level, eye-to-eye with Chalavanth, eyes awash in some kind of light. You can't help but liken his expression to a child staring excitedly at a puppy.

You're supposed to be going on a date. You're not entirely sure how it happened, either.

"They're so  _cute,"_ Papyrus breathes out, staring at Chalavanth, who's currently in the shape of an arctic fox.

Papyrus glances at you. "No touching," he checks, and you nod so fast you nearly get a crick in your neck. He nods back, budges back just a smidge, enough that an accidental brush wouldn't be in the cards.

Chalavanth meets his eyes, before letting their tongue loll out of their mouth, cocking their head just so.

Papyrus actually  _squeals,_ gloved hands clasping over his cheeks. Cheekbones?

_Quit showing off,_ you think to Chalavanth, and as if for the sole purpose of defying you, they immediately morph into a tiny quokka.

The squealing gets louder. You resign yourself to waiting on that date.

❤️

Whenever you enter a fight, Chalavanth turns into something small and scampers to hide—in your pant leg, up your sleeve, hidden in the riot of tangles you call hair, out of the way.

The time they turn into a snake, Chara snarls  _NO_  so intensely that Chalavanth immediately snaps into a beetle, and you shriek wordlessly with it—even  _you_ never force Chalavanth to shift, it's not  _done,_  the daemon decides what form to take—

Chalavanth makes a chittering noise, clicking pincers against your arm,  _focus!_  and you barely manage to roll out of the path of bullets.

❤️

Alphys leans down, adjusting her spectacles, too close to Chalavanth by far.

"So this is a daemon!" She says, curious, and your eyes are drawn to the way her claws are clack-clack-clacking against her glasses. You think her hands might be shaking.

Chalavanth—a coyote because of the heat—presses heavily against your shins, drawing back from her, nearly knocking you over. You plant your hand between their furry ears, casually maneuver yourself so that you're providing a bit of a barrier between them. You're a little surprised—usually, Chalavanth is the chatty one between you, the brave one, the one spurring you forwards, but faced with a lizard person—

_You forgot again, didn't you?_   Chara fumes quietly in your head.  _That's fine. The way you're going, you'll figure it out soon enough._

Alphys squints at you—or, well, somewhere in the vicinity of your chin, maybe?—and asks, "Are they s-settled?"

You shake your head, and Alphys nods, humming thoughtfully. 

"You know," Alphys says, "according to my studies, d-daemons are where monsters and humans overlap the most. Dust and magic." She glances down at Chalavanth, and you can't name the look that crosses her face—something melancholy, something dark. She's addressing them, when she speaks.

"You and I are more alike than most other m-monsters would want to acknowledge, I think."

❤️

The emptier the underground gets, the further away you go.

You don't quite know where you  _go,_ you just know that you're...  _away,_ in a sleepy cocoon you never want to wake up from, except.

Except.

There are times when you're aware enough that you feel the aching absence, somewhere in your chest, so intense you have to push your hand down hard against your sternum in an attempt to stem the feeling. You can only name it sometimes.

_Where's Chalavanth?_ You choke out into your dark cocoon, feeling less and less sleepy by the moment, more and more like it's suffocating you.  _Where's my daemon?_

"It's us," the person in your body says happily, smiling prettily at a mirror. You can feel the distant sensation of something curled up on your neck, something trying to absorb some warmth.

You think it might be red.

_Where's Chalavanth? Where's Chalavanth? Where's Chalavanth?_

They turn away from the mirror, and reach up a hand to absentmindedly stroke at the snake's triangular head.

"There's no more Chalavanth," they say, impatient, but their temper is dulled slightly by the glee of finding a real knife. "There's only Erimentha."

❤️

While you're sipping meekly at the tea Chara had demanded you pick, Undyne's eyes keep darting to Chalavanth—a frog, perched atop your head, a good form for the damp humidity of Waterfall. When you catch her doing it again, you blink at her, hoping to pass off a slightly chiding air.

Undyne doesn't seem to be deterred, but you think that's probably one of the tenets of Undyne's personality.

"That's your daemon, right?" She says, gruffness not quite masking her interest. You nod carefully, not wanting to dislodge them. 

Undyne says, "I think they're pretty cool, but it's super weird that you carry your soul or whatever outside your body."

You're a little offended. Undyne doesn't seem to notice.

"So, like, yours can— _shift,_ right? Until you, um. Settle?"

You nod.

"So, could your daemon be, like. Anything? Anything you want?"

You pause, tilt your head, wave your hand from side to side.  _Kinda._ "They don't shift unless they want to," you add. "And you don't pick how you settle."

Undyne glances at Chalavanth, and says, "How big can you get?"

It still jars you, a little, that monsters talk so easily to daemons. In the human world, it's  _not done._  Daemons talk to daemons, and humans talk to humans. That's the norm. Anything straying from that is... unusual.

You lift Chalavanth from your head, and carefully set them on the ground. They turn into a howler monkey, so you don't have to bend so low to set them on the ground.

"Only if you want," you tell them, and they nod. You think they want to show off, a little. Chalavanth grins at Undyne, toothy and bright as anything, before it starts.

It takes your breath away, the surety and swiftness with which they shift from form to form, every single time.

They go from monkey to crocodile—a playful snap near Undyne's heels—before they shift into an ostritch with a squawk, a brown bear that goes up on their hind legs, a horse with a whinny, a giraffe that bows its neck to you, ears flapping, a whale flapping briefly on the ground, before an elephant is in the middle of Undyne's house. You're a little afraid of them breaking something, namely Undyne's house, and they bend down quickly, trunk curling and uncurling.

"If we were older, I'd be even bigger," Chalavanth says, and wiggles their ears, before suddenly they're a frog again, leaping up into your hands. You place them back on your head with one hand and take sip of tea with the other, hiding a smug little smile into your tea cup at the look on Undyne's face. You think she might be impressed.

"FUHUHU!" She shouts, and slams her hand on the table, making you jump a little. "I get why Alphys thinks daemons are crazy cool now, punk! Why didn't you morph into a tiger or something during our fight, huh? You coulda finished me off before I could even blink! Or, you could have tried!"

You and Chalavanth both shake your heads as one, but Chara perks up a little in interest.

Undyne sighs. "Man," she says, almost to herself, "If you weren't such a goody two-shoes—our fight coulda been  _so_   _awesome."_

❤️

_This is not for you._

_—a silver cross dangling from her hand, catching the sunlight, the click-click-click of rosary beads—_

_—"Heavenly Father, let the healing waters of my baptism now flow back through the maternal and paternal generations to purify my family line of Satan and sin—"_

_—the sharp glint of red in the mirror, and you tilt your head, before you reach out and touch the near-identical shade that's curled around your neck, a lazy sort of necklace, and you touch your neck with a sort of curiosity, even as the click-click-click gets louder—_

_"—I come before You, Father, and ask forgiveness for myself, my relatives, and my ancestors, for any calling upon powers that set themselves up in opposition to You or that do not offer true honor to Jesus Christ—"_

_—because in school they said snakes were the symbol of Satan, and doesn't it just prove everyone right that you settled so early, settled so clearly into something so evil—_

_"—In Jesus' Holy Name, I now reclaim any territory that was handed over to Satan and place it under the Lordship of Jesus Christ."_

_—if you're a demon, then why not prove them right?_

❤️

You wake up enough to watch Chara step into the glimmering gold hall. They've got your hand wrapped tight around the knife, and you almost want to close your eyes, go back, ignore what's to come.

You know what'll happen, of course. You've been here too many times to count. You want to go to sleep, turn back, refuse it—but your eyes are practically taped open and full of dread.

The opening monologue. You think you could say it in your sleep at this point. You try your best to brace yourself.

You're lit up with blue magic, and so is Chalavanth—or Erimentha, now? Your body is thrown to one end of the room. Theirs is thrown to the other.

Chara can't help but sit up and scream, try to surge forwards through the forming blaster, but you know the outcome, and you know that Chara shouldn't even try—it never changes.

The blaster explodes a shower of raw magic, and you feel your connection to your daemon—

You don't quite know the word to describe it. It snaps, it breaks, it shatters, it...  _severs._

You and Chara both scream, more from the shock of it than the pain. There isn't much pain at all. You aren't sure which of you run to Chala-Erimentha first—you know that you both are wrapping your arms around them, feel them wind their way so tight around your neck you can barely breathe, and you leap out of the way of the bones hurtling for your back.

The anger is a living thing in your chest, a third soul budging in to occupy this already full to capacity body, but you welcome its rough edges, clasp hard to the fury, because the alternative is breaking down, and you are in the middle of a battle with the monster that  _did this to you_ you  _won't let him see weakness._

You aren't sure which of you thinks that you are going to  _kill_  that stupid smiling trashbag for severing you. In the moment, you are so focused on your rage that your grip tightens alongside Chara's on the knife, and the pair of you leap forwards, as one.

❤️

Chalavanth shifts immediately into a mink, resting along the backs of your shoulders like a particularly fuzzy scarf. In the midst of the cold, dark lab, with a chilly fog swirling menacingly around your ankles, it feels like Chalavanth is the only thing anchoring you to some sense of calm.

It seems almost like their time in the dump earlier, watching Alphys and Undyne stumble into their confessions to each other, was some kind of other world, a shining, pearlescent bubble that had popped as soon as that elevator lost power. The pastel world of Alphys' lab—or, at least, the facade that sat on top of where her lab is—seems like a mocking kind of cheerful, now that you think of it.

When you get close to one of the screens, the light casts a sickly green sheen over you and Chalavanth—it turns their now-brown fur into an odd muddled color, like half-dead grass. You know it probably turns all the colors of your face into  _something else_. You turn away from the screen, and move to the next one.

They keep talking about the souls of monsters. They talk about how both monsters and daemons disappear immediately after death. You and Chalavanth both make a noise in the back of your throat, and at last you step up to the last one, a turn in the hall before you.

_I've extracted it from the human souls. The will to keep living... the resolve to change fate. Let's call this power... DETERMINATION._

You take a step back, hand curling over Chalavanth.  _Extracted from the human souls._ You take a second to huddle up in the corner, press your face against Chalavanth.

"Extracted," Chalavanth says, hollowly. "But—she was just saying how daemons vanish after death—"

_But she was talking about how monster souls disappear too, and it seems like she's found some way to experiment with them,_ you tell them, and they shudder.

You try your best to ask Chara what this means. There's only a sense of foreboding tension.

You take a deep breath, step out from the corner, and Chalavanth moves smoothly down your arm, so you hold them in the crook of your elbow, pressing against your stomach. You think both you and Chalavanth are going to need the comfort of each other before you get through this place.

You get some chisps from the vending machine. The crunching helps ground you, the saltiness making you feel a little more on edge, some odd kind of sensory instinct. You squint at the note on the ground. _Power._  

"We just have to get the keys," you say, as Chalavanth is curling up tighter in your arm. "That doesn't sound too bad. We'll be out of here in no time."

You glance around the lab—cold, dark, the green light making everything look wrong and out of place—and swallow your last bite of chisps, mouth suddenly very dry.

You drop the empty chisps bag on the ground. Weirdly, this form of litter serves to make the place look a little less spooky, even if you feel bad about it.

The door ahead is locked, so you turn to the left.

The mist—fog?—is thicker here, and you shiver a little, goosebumps rising up on your arms. For some reason, this place feels a lot colder than Snowdin ever did.

There are three operating tables laid out, with little tanks in the walls behind them. You walk a little closer.

There's something glimmering in the gritty corners of the tank. Chalavanth makes another whimpering noise, echoing around the room like a gunshot. You hold them closer, taking an instinctive step away, hand landing on the operating table. It's  _sticky._ Your hand leaps away, and you hurriedly wipe it on your jeans, stumbling away, closer to the sinks, jamming on the tap as fast as you can, sticking your hand under it, Chalavanth quickly climbing back up to your shoulders so you can scrub with the other hand.

The water's so  _cold,_ your hands tingling and burning, and you turn on the next sink without bothering to turn off the other.

No improvement. You reach for the third—

Something white drips out of the tap, and you recoil in disgust.  _Drip, drip._

Then, with a screech, something amorphous and massive explodes from the sink, sending you sprawling with a scream of—shock? Fear? You don't even have any time to think when you scramble up to face it, Chalavanth's tiny claws digging in tight to your shoulders.

You don't know what it is. 

All you can see is the way they  _flicker,_ like static, like they're going in and out of existence—

and the golden glimmer diffused throughout the white.

You're going to be sick.  _You're going to be sick._

You manage to stumble your way through the fight, and collapse as soon as it's done, back braced against the sink, holding Chalavanth tighter tighter tighter—

_"You and I are more alike than most other m-monsters would want to acknowledge, I think,"_ Alphys had said, that echoing around in your ears, and had that been a hint? Had it been some kind of irony?  _You and I are more alike,_ daemons and monsters and Dust, all made up of the same thing,  _except absolutely not—_

You remember Chalavanth shying away from Alphys when she tried to get close to them, the near-haughty sniff through their coyote nose when you found out that Alphys had lied to you, the way they seemed to show off for everyone  _except_ Alphys, like—

_Put it together, have you?_ Chara seems to drawl, and you shudder, Chalavanth unresponsive in your arms.

"You  _remembered,"_ you choke to Chalavanth. "You remembered when I didn't, oh, God, Chalavanth—"

You'd never suspected. Daemons and people could have different opinions on things, of course they did; it's the basis of divided opinions. You had thought Alphys was mostly all right, but Chalavanth had always been cautious, always been skittish, and it was because they  _knew_ when you didn't—

"We need to get out of here," Chalavanth says at last, voice dull.

You huddle tighter around them, like you're about to protect them from some scientist, even if you know that you're trapped down here until you get the keys—

You don't know how long it takes you to stand, and peek into the sink's drain. Glimmering red. A key. It matches your soul. You slide it onto the phone's keychain.

The corner of your mind that has somehow maintained calmness even as you and Chalavanth are both trembling is what pilots you through the room, through your fights with the Amalgamates. It's bizarrely similar to how you feel when Chara's taken over your body, except you don't do any violences so you're reliably sure you're still the one in control.

You lay on the bed in the next room, trying to catch your breath, calm your hands. Chalavanth is pressing against you so closely, it's difficult to distinguish where you stop and they begin, which is, of course, never. You are them, and they are you, and you are connected together, and that is what matters right now, what you focus on, the end of your rope that you cling to with both hands and also possibly your teeth.

Chalavanth freezes so completely and utterly in your arms that you do too, and you are suddenly aware of the fact that Chalavanth is staring at something behind you.

You squeeze your eyes shut, heart pounding in your ears, so loud it would drown out any sound the thing behind you is making, any advice Chara has to offer. You are limp and frozen with shock, even as the tell-tale burning starts up in your eyes, and you feel your lip trembling, your eyebrows drawing down just so, the sense of something blocking off your throat.

Whatever is behind you doesn't seem to notice that you are crying, your shoulders shaking with the force of staying silent, until—

There is the sudden weight of the blanket, over your shoulders where it had been crumpled at your feet before. You squeeze your eyes shut, more tears leaking away, and Chalavanth dares to move, sticking their nose out from under the covers.

"It's gone," they say, soft, their voice the only noise other than some distant clanking you don't want to think about. 

You can't really remember the last time you were tucked into bed by someone who isn't Toriel. You aren't sure if it's the resets ( _if you forgot **this,** what else could you possibly be forgetting?)_ or just you blocking them out. You think it's probably for the best if you don't go poking around in your memories just now, either. You have things to do.

You take a deep breath. Two. Then you gather Chalavanth into your arms, and slide quietly out of the bed.

 

The same odd, foggy calm has descended over you again. There's pressure in the back of your head, and you're unused to holding Chalavanth like this mid-fight. You aren't sure if that's the reason that you seem to be taking more hits than usual, or the creatures' unusual attacks, or the glimmer of gold that makes the poptato chisps rise up in the back of your throat.

You nearly panic when you see the legions of golden flowers, before you realize that they are only moving in the artificial breeze, and don't have faces, and won't attempt to kill you. Something in you goes cold—your blood, your heart—but you almost aren't surprised when another creature leaps out at you from the crevice in the mirror, or forming from the fans.

You tense a little when you enter another room, and the pressure grows worse and worse. With jerky movements that you don't think you had, you wipe off some of the slime with your sleeve and shove the tape into the VHS player.

The first voice freezes you, and you sit down on the floor hard enough that an awful jarring sensation shoots up your tailbone.

_"Psst. Gorey, wake up."_

Toriel.  _Toriel._ She seems to be everywhere, nowhere you expect: in the taste of the cinnamon bunnies, why Sans guided you through Snowdin, in the dusty, covered throne Asgore had walked past, in Flowey's face when he had been taunting you. And now here, in a grimy room, full of tapes. You miss her with a physical ache, and—you don't think it's only your longing.

The tape clicks, and it definitely isn't you that moves to replace the tape—the pressure in your head is so intense that you want to close your eyes, cover your ears, and lay down. 

Then—

" _Okay, Chara, are you ready?_ _"_

The blood drains from your-their face, and you can see their memory swim in front of your eyes in a sickening sense of double vision—golden flowers, a smile that you-they love with a fierce, furious devotion, a beat-up old camcorder—

You try hard not to squirm, because the wall Chara usually keeps between your thoughts and theirs with such studious persistence is breaking down,  _rapidly._  

.... _are you okay?_

They reach for the next tape, and jam it into the player roughly without answering.

_"Howdy, Chara! Smile for the camera!"_

You-they choke on a sob, and your finger inches towards the pause button. Before you can ask, they've yanked your arm back to your chest, snarling wordlessly, and you try to make yourself as small as you can. Message received.  _This is not for you._

_"Oh, yeah, I remember! When we tried to make butterscotch pie for Dad, right?"_

double-vision again: a peek through a slot in the bedroom door, the great king laid out in his bed, looking weak and nearly translucent—there is something white and grainy and fine sticking stubbornly to his beard—a cough so deep and hacking your-their throat closes up in commiseration—Toriel's brow creasing in concern and a soft, hushed whisper that you-they think might be a lullaby—a stained cloth in her hands, dipped into a basin of water—a paw at your shoulder and tugging you-them away from the door, away from  _what you did—_ your-their face crack-splitting open into a brittle smile—

_"I... I don't like this idea, Chara."_

— _don't you know that it only takes six souls? you can absorb mine and we'll be together forever and we'll free everyone and they'll be so grateful we'll be heroes—_ buttercups in your-their hands and you-they wonder about the taste—the sun is the only things you-they miss about the surface and you-they wonder what Asriel's fur will look like gleaming in the light—you'll be so strong together—

_"Chara... can you hear me? We want you to wake up..."_

There's no memories to go with this one—only a hazy sense of heat-chill, and the pressure abates.

You swallow, as the tape runs out. 

"Chara?" You ask, careful.

Silence. Then:  _We both climbed the mountain for a reason._

Chalavanth, who had been quiet and subdued during this, shifts at last from a mink—into a familiar red snake. They twine slowly up your arm, across your shoulders, around your neck, a comforting weight. You think Chara might need the familiar form of their own daemon right now, and clearly Chalavanth does too.

They use your hand to drift up, touch their triangular head.  _Erimentha looked beautiful, then,_ Chara thinks, and there's a tremor in their thoughts—a bit like the one you get before crying.  _After people telling me after they settled that they were a sign that I was evil, that they were ugly, that their form made me ugly too. They didn't go up into Dust all at once. Just bit by bit. I tried to catch the Dust in my hands, but—_

_Dust to dust,_ your thought a whisper. _And then to nothing._

You hesitate.

"They were wrong," you say at last. "They are good. They look beautiful. Just like this."

You don't finish the thought, but the absence of the phrase occurs to them, the words you don't say following slowly, falling into place like dominoes. Belatedly, blood rushes to your face, a biological response that doesn't obey you. A warmth in your chest, and your hand rises to touch it. You think it's the closest to a hug that you are able to give them.

The pressure in your head abates, but you keep your hand on Chalavanth's triangular head. You stand.

It's time to go.

❤️

The grass is itchy and rough beneath you, but you don't want to get up for anything, too cozy and sleepy. Your glass of tart lemonade sweats condensation into your hand, the aftertaste still making your lips pucker. The sunscreen you'd been forced to slather on lends an artificially coconutty scent to the air, making your skin feel a little slimy even after the excess had been rubbed in. The sun is a blazing thing millions of miles away but hovering right above your head, at the center of a brilliantly azure sky.

There is the crashing and screaming and laughter of your friends in the background, splashing loudly in the lake you'd swum in before your picnic lunch. Someone is petting your sun-heated hair. A familiar weight is on your stomach, sunning themself.

You open your eyes, and smile up at the warm, soft eyes of your mother, from where your head is resting in her lap. She smiles back, eyes crinkling in delight. She adjusts the wide-brimmed sunhat with her free hand, before letting it come to rest, her hands cradling your skull. 

Chalavanth uncurls from the coil they'd been resting in on your stomach, slithering up to lick at your chin playfully with their forked tongue. Toriel laughs, and you and Chara both feel a warmth in your chest at the sound of it, once rare but growing more and more common.

You are content.

**Author's Note:**

> both chalavanth and erimentha mean _a determined person._ chalavanth is unsettled, while erimentha is a inland taipan. title from "dust to dust" by the civil wars.
> 
> a collection of thoughts about how daemons would work in the Undertale world. mostly, the thought of monster dust vs daemon dust got me started, and so this was created.


End file.
